Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Shah Rukh" in English language version.
From the inscription it would also appear that Shah-Rukh's remains were brought to Samarkand by his daughter Payanda Sultan Bika and that it was she also who erected the gravestone (A. A. Semenov). According to other records (V. V. Barthold) Shah-Rukh died in western Persia and his body was, first of all, taken to Herat and there buried in a medresseh built by his wife Gauchar-Shad. It was not until 1448 when Ulugh-Beg for a short time occupied Herat, that he had his father's body transferred to Samarkand.
None of the Timurid burials in the Gur-i-Emir mausoleum was primary, that is to say all the bodies had been interred elsewhere before the remains were transferred to the mausoleum. Not only the body of Miran-Shah but also that of Shah-Rukh took a long road from Herat to Samarkand. The remains of the latter were, moreover, carried with him by his son Ulugh-Beg in the difficult circumstances of a retreat after a lost battle. The correct anatomical arrangement of Shah-Rukh's bones has, however, not called forth any doubt as to their authenticity from scientists.
Some specific peculiarities of the skull are of especial interest since they can throw light on the origins and descent of Shah-Rukh. As we have mentioned more than once he came of Berlas stock and he possessed the features of a Mongoloid although they were attenuated through hybridisation as could be especially noted in the facial bones. A superficial glance at Shah-Rukh's skull was enough to show that the main features were those of another racial type. Shah-Rukh indeed was a typical representative of the brachycephalic Europoid, the so-called Ferghana-Pamir type which is so characteristic of central Asia.
Only a very thorough examination of the bones could help to solve the problem whether Timur was Shah-Rukh's real father. What complicated the task was that the two men belonged to two quite different racial types. Timur was a Mongoloid and Shah-Rukh a Europoid. Very clearly marked features of the Europoid type were recognisable even in details and Shah-Rukh's appearance must have been very like that of the present-day Tadjika. He must have inherited most of his features from his mother.
During the making of the Timurids' portraits a discussion arose as to whether Shah-Rukh was a real son of Timur. Timur was, from an anthropological point of view, a typical Mongoloid while Shah-Rukh was pronouncedly Europoid. Historians of Central Asia often refer to the dislike the father felt for the son. Hence a legend arose that Shah-Rukh could not have been Timur's actual son.
I might add something which Gerasimov showed me and told me when I was in Moscow in 1955. Ulugh Beg's features (p. 180) are Mongoloid; those of his father Shah Rukh are not at all, rather he looks like a typical Tājik. Ulugh Beg seems to take after his grandfather rather than his father, which is an item of interest to historians.
{{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)As he returned from Herat to winter in Bukhara, he was first of all badly defeated by Abu'l-Qasim Babur, another son of Baisunqur, and subsequently by the Uzbeks, as he was fording the Amu Darya (CHI vi, 108). This series of embarrassing defeats was followed by the rebellion of his own son, 'Abd al-Latif, whom he had made governor of Balkh.
Gerasimov's work to reconstruct the facial appearance of Ulugh Beg, Timur, Shah Rukh, and Miranshah, however inexact the science of such reconstructions may be considered today, had a place then in buttressing the theory of ethnogenesis by grounding it in a visual representation of a physical type with which people might identify.
The well-known Freer Gallery painting is actually only the right half of a double-page composition showing the triumphal entry into Samarqand made by Shahrukh in Dhu'I-Hijja 796 (September 1394), after Timur appointed him governor of that city.